


Apex and Crucible

by AlabasterChambers



Category: The Fugitive (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25810975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlabasterChambers/pseuds/AlabasterChambers
Summary: Samuel Gerard reflects on his life, and the lives of those closest to him, especially the ones lost.
Kudos: 2





	Apex and Crucible

At 26, six months into the start of his career, the end of the 17th year of Sam Gerard's, Noah Newman got married.

Despite coworkers being relatively new, they were all invited to what was a rather small wedding. The bride was a petite, mousy girl whose glasses were nearly as large as the honest smile on her face.

They had met in college, Guadalupe "Lupita" Moreno a future math teacher and Noah Newman a fresh faced and idealistic boy with a ponytail.

Both dressed modestly in poor garb of a hopeful future, children and happiness and old age, they had created a heart-warming and endearing picture.

Sam Gerard had taken notice of the lack of family on Newman's part, Lupita's own warmly welcoming and feeding everyone, and had quickly, though gruffly, decided that maybe, the 26 year old who had so recently proved himself in their last case, could be informally adopted to their team, and odd family.

Of course even before the event, he had been worming his way in ever so quietly. His general character: soft, unassuming and earnest, did not jar the group. Success, belief in Gerard's personal theology of crusading the U.S. Marshals and their duties, and due diligence, had carved a way for him.

"I dos" were said, a bottle of eight dollar champagne opened and festivities commenced.

Samuel Gerard considered this event the true mark of the start of his 18th and veritably most interesting year of an already well seasoned career.

The 18th year was the vertex, his magnum opus, and the solidification of the legacy he would leave behind. Successfully capturing one of the most infamous fugitives whilst solving the case of a medical scandal on first a national scale, and quite possibly a global one, was the feather in his cap he had never asked for and had begrudgingly and resentfully allowed to be placed there by the virtue of him being unable to refuse it.

It had only proved to him that his morals, though beleaguered by traps and the confines of a twisting society, were still applicable and perfectly understandable. Marshall law was absolute, his rules absolute, his determination and the Justice which provoked and legitimized him was unquestionable.

His “kids” were all alive, relatively happy despite Cosmo’s bitching, perfectly functioning and they back-talked like nobody's business. He couldn’t ask for it to be any other way.

It had been seven years since he’d picked up his plucky and surprisingly determined Cosmo Renfro. He remembered quite clearly when the small man had stormed into his office, having spent his whole life proving something, and determined to let no one stop him. It had been like facing down a wall in that first case. Of course it had eventually resolved itself, and the name of “big dog” had been born.

A year later and a duo had come in. Bob Biggs and Savannah Cooper. They’d gone through Glynco together, and before that apparently college. How far back their history went was still a mystery. They had a companionable but muted relationship which inspired an efficiency that Sam could only marvel over and then exploit.

Five years later and the kid of the kids, Noah, had come in. Quiet, shy smiling, a bit of a temper when provoked, and if at times a bit naive, he had completed the set. 

Some days, in a life empty aside from work, Sam Gerard would think that his life, without these people, would be meaningless. He’d of course remember the work and shake himself free of those worries. A couple miscarriages, a failed marriage, and the loss of what little family did exist had never deterred him.

Three years out from “the big case” of the good doctor, Sam Gerard came the closest to feeling like a grandfather that he assumed he would ever feel. Lupita and Noah had their first kid, a baby girl named Samantha. Noah grew up a little more, Sam felt older, his team felt more alive.

Two years later and the Chinese government stealing American secrets became what he would consider the crucible of his career, the wind down, the official retiring case, all that would come after would not compare in the eyes of the public and any who desired a biography (as if they would pry one from Sam’s harsh, untiring grasp). Nothing would compare to the tribulations of soul and mind which he experienced.

However, the little prosaic things stuck out more, held more importance, like Noah cutting his hair because at two and a half Sammy liked to pull on hair. That Cosmo had finally gotten a girlfriend who could live with his crazy schedule. Savannah had broken into real estate and owned multiple properties, even gotten that second degree. And they had all discovered that Bob played harmonica in his spare time at bars with small venue areas.

Sheridan, tragic and betrayed American loyal to his country, was someone Sam Gerard could not help but to respect yet despise. His emancipation had come at the cost of Noah. Why did one man’s freedom have to be paid with so much blood, with calling a number and hearing Lupita’s chirpy “who is it?” with Samantha’s giggles echoing in the background just to crush that entire happy little world into dust?

These were questions which rattled Sam Gerard, struck at the foundation of his work and sent him on the slow slide to a retirement where “what-ifs” circled his head far more often than he would ever admit or even what anyone could guess.

Milk at bars and birthday presents to a child growing into a woman would never fill the hole. Nor would any of the others in his life be filled. 

Sheridan attended the funeral. His words were honorable, he claimed Newman saved his life, and had led to the last traitor and the entire debacle of compromised National security to be found and eradicated.

National security and traitors did not equal soft spoken jokes and the toddler’s drawings which were spread across not only Newman’s station but that of every other agent’s, even Sam’s. 

He didn’t care if it was cliche -Newman’s story- or if his grief was redundant to a world at large. He wanted his “kid” back. He wanted the rest of his “family” to not have to learn how to survive it.

Life however goes on, or stops in Noah’s case, with very little aplomb. There still existed fugitives, and convoys, assistance cases on witness protection, plenty of paperwork. Of course, every once in a while, shifting through old papers and old memories, things came up, an odd drawing done in the medium of crayon, an old memo written in Noah’s almost unreadable scrawl. Sam Gerard would never pioneer his field of work in the same manner, though from the outside it was practically identical. 

Eventually he retired, looking back on memories with fondness, proudly watching Savannah Cooper direct her own team, attempting to take up hobbies, and then attending the wedding of a Samantha Newman, twenty three, all in white, and standing across from a man naive, earnest, and hopefully as good as the one from before. 

Sam Gerard considered his life and found that like all things, despite all the twists and turns, it had ended up quite how he thought it would. Or at least quite how he determined it to be. And Noah Newman, who though long dead, tragically dead, lived on in ways he probably hadn’t thought he would. Sam Gerard would die long before he would.

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the Fugitive, which was amazing, and then U.S. Marshals. Did not expect Newman's character to be killed, saw the wedding ring, and was disappointed with how the movie handled just about everything.
> 
> Might be the prelude to a fic which deals with Noah Newman and his first case or something similar. Probably not though.


End file.
